As some of you guys know, I along with some others on various other forums, have been doing "research" into the past and present Formula One television ratings. The figures are all between the time period 1992 to 2011 - for some years figures are a tad sketchier, and for qualifying a few figures are missing, but on the whole it gives a good picture at how the ratings have changed in the UK over the years.

To start off, here are some basic statistics concerning the races. I've done three tables - one as a whole, one covering races in the "America-zone" and one covering races in "daytime" - reason being that races in the America's rate higher as they are in "primetime" (i.e. the time most people are watching television):

As expected, the last race of 2008 is top - a British champion in primetime was always bound to bring in bigger figures than in daytime. As proven there - F1 will most of the time have bigger figures in primetime than daytime. Now, let's break down the above into American races and European races:

This table is dominated by ITV1. Two reasons for this. The first one is that BBC put their "American" races either on tape delay or on BBC Two so it didn't interfere with their primetime schedule when they had the contract until 1996 - the highest Brazilian GP rating from 1992 to 1996 for instance was 6.0m in 1992. Second reason for the above is well, "Coronation Street follows this programme". Well, viewers of that programme would have tuned in to find cars racing around, which may explain the high figures above as their soap was delayed by 20 minutes. My third race table, is for European races:

One thing you'll notice is hardly no ITV1 races. The charts that I'll post below will show a steady decline for Formula One from 1999 onwards, due to lack of British talent and Schumacher dominance. The only two races that do enter the top ten are 1998 Britain (Hakkinen/Schumacher battle) and 1997 Europe (Villeneuve/Schumi) - nothing from 2000 for ITV enters the top 10. I think we'll need a table "Top 10 Europe 21st century only" Race Broadcasts - lets see if we notice something....

As you can see only now is F1 having a resurgence due to the closer, more exciting racing.

I think the above, while there is a margin of error as I don't have every single figure (as some are too low) show how much F1 declined. The biggest single drops are 1997 from 1996 (change of broadcaster), 2000 from 1999 and 2004 from 2003 - obviously not helped at all by Schumacher's dominance. 1993 from 1992 did have a drop also - but I don't have many figures for those years. The thing that surprises me is that, even when his dominance ended, figures stayed low, maybe the public just thought "Different guy, same domination story". ITV were lucky that Hamilton came along in 2007 - the above graph demonstrated that with him, figures very quickly returned to 2001/02 levels. Had Hamilton not come in, I would guess that figures would have continued to decline. With the 'more exciting' F1 now in 2011, F1's ratings are now heading upwards.

And onto the last bit - qualifying. I'm not doing a top ten - because a few figures are missing, so it doesn't really give a complete picture. The highest figure, for anyone interested is 5.16 million for the 1996 Argentine Grand Prix qualifying. The next best thing is 4.4 million which is for the rain affected Brazilian Grand Prix qualifying in 2009 (for Asian sessions I combine live and re-run rating as the live rating is not big at all - this helps to get a more complete and better picture). The graph above shows a huge increase for 2009. The average for 2009 qualifying is only 1.6 million behind the race average. Qualifying has performed much more better since moving from ITV. One thing that surprised me was the 2006 average - it is pretty accurate seeing as I've got 14 of the 18 qualifying ratings. Considering the new format was to make qualifying more attractive - it appeared to do the opposite to TV ratings - not high at all. 2006 seemed a pretty shite year for UK TV ratings. I thought a German would be more unpopular in England than a Spaniard? Maybe its just me! To round off - thanks to EmilioLargo, rzt and iaindb for helping me get figures and filling in a few gaps along the way!

If you do read this thread - please leave a thanks, if anyone has any analysis for other countries, please share it - did F1 have a similar decline in other countries? It'd be interesting to see. Also, if anyone does get access, or has a load of past UK F1 ratings, ping me a PM - and I'll see if I don't or do have them.

Ratings would jump on Saturdays. They've always had this idea that qualifying is just something that has to be done, rather than an integral part of the show. Whilst it's format has been tweaked, people will always prefer racing to cars driving and a stopwatch.

Ratings would jump on Saturdays. They've always had this idea that qualifying is just something that has to be done, rather than an integral part of the show. Whilst it's format has been tweaked, people will always prefer racing to cars driving and a stopwatch.

I'm not doubting that - qualifying isn't meant to rate higher by any stretch of the imagination. I don't really want to see sprint races just to win a TV audience to be honest.

It's a bit like a football competiiton - the group stages rate lower than the final; in the same way qualifying rates lower than the race. Besides the thread wasn't actually meant to directly compare qualifying with race - it was meant to show the difference as years have passed.

BBC website lists Abu Dhabi race as 11:00 UK time, which is perfect as it means lie-in and then breakfast while watching Button celebrate his title. Doesn't clash with my football team either . I do miss Monza and Singapore though which could be McLaren's best chance's to win a race , bloody football http://news.bbc.co.u...dar/default.stm

Ratings would jump on Saturdays. They've always had this idea that qualifying is just something that has to be done, rather than an integral part of the show. Whilst it's format has been tweaked, people will always prefer racing to cars driving and a stopwatch.

Who cares about ratings on Saturday? I am fine with qualifying. A sprint race will only dilute my anticipation of the race proper on Sunday where all the question marks become answers.

I guess this is the kinda mindless ratings chasing we'll see if the car manufacturers have their way with controlling F1.

Only in Britain and Germany, in the late afternoon (though in England there's always one single game played early Saturday afternoon).In about every other European country matches are played Saturday night or on Sundays.

Abu Dhabi's TV ratings will be based on how the championship is at that stage.

Guess so. If the title's already won, it'd probably get normal ratings (4m) if Button is still yet to win it, maybe 6/7 million. But it would be higher if it was on a peaktime - last year with Lewis it peaked at 13 million.

I get the impression the UK isn't as interested in Button as they were in Lewis.

I'd agree with that. Even though he's doing the ratings good - UK are not as interested. I think the reason is mainly that Hamilton and Hill I guess, were built up over a series of years - both of those two failed once before climbing to the top, whereas Button has just been "there" - never really done anything - this year has sort of come out of no where to be honest.

I won't say they aren't interested, because they are. But trust me, if Lewis wins this year, I'd bet more people will watch then when JB wins.

I'd agree with that. Even though he's doing the ratings good - UK are not as interested. I think the reason is mainly that Hamilton and Hill I guess, were built up over a series of years - both of those two failed once before climbing to the top, whereas Button has just been "there" - never really done anything - this year has sort of come out of no where to be honest.

I won't say they aren't interested, because they are. But trust me, if Lewis wins this year, I'd bet more people will watch then when JB wins.

I think a lot of it is due to the lack of hysteric hype that was given to Lewis by the media in general and ITV in particular.

The UK simply isn't the 'racing country' everyone makes it out to be. They're just like any other F1 country, if they have a local boy doing well the TV ratings increase noticeably.

I respectfully disagree regardless of there being a golden boy or not, they UK does better than most of Europe in terms of figures. Also when you consider population sizes etc. the UK is a 'racing country.'

http://www.f1fanatic...-races-of-2009/2.1 million average and 3.4 million peak for a race at 5 in the morning on a Sunday(which for me being a teenager is very difficult) out of a population of 60 million is very impressive. Especially when it seems we are only interested in Lewis and he was starting from 18th.

I respectfully disagree regardless of there being a golden boy or not, they UK does better than most of Europe in terms of figures. Also when you consider population sizes etc. the UK is a 'racing country.'

I respectfully suggest you read again what he actually wrote.

By the way the "does better than most Countries" part, does that include the countries that have a winning driver at that time - as Ross was alluding to?

I respectfully disagree regardless of there being a golden boy or not, they UK does better than most of Europe in terms of figures. Also when you consider population sizes etc. the UK is a 'racing country.'

Compare the ratings vs population in other countries and you will see similar trends.

Italy didn't have a local boy since Ascari, but that didn't stop them to follow F1. Their ratings till Hammy Wammy have been 2 to 3 - 3.5 times higher vs Britain, at an equal population.

I agree Britain, was never really a "racing country", it was and is (for most part) a fanboy country.The only racing country I can think of is Italy.

Small issue of Ferrari clouds the stats there.

http://www.f1fanatic...-races-of-2009/2.1 million average and 3.4 million peak for a race at 5 in the morning on a Sunday(which for me being a teenager is very difficult) out of a population of 60 million is very impressive. Especially when it seems we are only interested in Lewis and he was starting from 18th.

Eh? That's not a bearing on how much the country is interested in racing but how strong their domestic riders are, which is a statistical anomaly. Spain is however a bike mad nation. But they've also consistently had front runners, like Italy. In countries with next to no current or historical Grand Prix bike presense, ie a German or even a UK at times, the numbers are nothing to get excited about.

Great research BTW D.M.N . A home champion often captures the fickle public's imagination, hence increased ratings, this also helps some catch 'the bug' as Jackie Stewart puts it, which leads to a fanatical following. However with the dearth of home F1 drivers and more T.V channels I suspect it is becoming more difficult for nations to build this fanatical following.

The same Enzo who said Aerodynamics is for those who can't build good engines.

He wasn't always right. But the personalities/golden-boys of the past have been forgotten as time passed, they mean nothing to most of today's viewership/fan base, while the Scuderia Ferrari is a famous today as it ever was, even more so.